Youtube are ready to start pushing the new VP9 video format they have developed, which can stream ultra 4k HD using half the bandwidth required by other formats around today.

Parent company Google will be showing the VP9 video codec at this years CES in a bid to get manufacturers streaming 4K Youtube content on Smart TVs, phones, tablets and computers whilst using much less bandwidth.

The VP9 codec will be implemented by Youtube for it’s own HD videos and will be royalty free and open source, encouraging hardware and software companies to use it for HD. The codec will also reduce the amount of data needed for standard HD streams by around 50%.

Currently 4k streaming tends to use the HEVC or H.265 standard as used by Netflix on shows like House of Cards. But HEVC comes at a cost and needs users to have a licensing agreement.

YouTube who were early adopters of 1080p HD, will be demoing the VP9 streaming to a number of manufacturers at CES including LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony and Intel amongst others.